DOES COLLABORATIVE GAMEPLAY ENHANCE LEARING WITH AN EDUCATIONAL COMPUTER GAME?

This research intends to find out if collaborative gameplay can enhance learning with an educational computer game. Motivational aspects (self-efficacy, flow) stand central in order to distinguish possible differences in learning outcomes between participants playing the educational computer game solitary or in dyads.
At the University of Twente, Netherlands, an experiment with 54 students playing an educational computer game had been conducted. Within the experimental condition, students were playing the game in dyads. The control group consisted of single students playing the educational computer game on their own. In order to measure the motivational conditions of each group, the questionnaire on current motivation (QCM) and the flow short scale (FSK) have been used to measure possible motivational differences between the conditions. After gameplay, each individual participant answered a knowledge test. The results of both conditions have been compared in order to find possible discrepancies.
This research concludes with stating that no evidence has been found that would support the thesis that collaborative gameplay enhances learning with an educational computer game. On the contrary, data suggests that participants in the solitary gameplay condition concluded the knowledge test with better results compared to the experimental condition. Next to that, no evidence has been found that would support the thesis that motivational aspects would influence on the learning outcomes of the participants. Only the concept of incompetence fear resulted in a significant correlation with the learning outcomes. Other concepts did not succeed in indicating any significant correlations.